Shot Clock Violation: Judge Tosses Untimely Construction Defect Claims

In basketball there is a shot clock. Once a team has the ball, it must shoot within 30 seconds. We're obviously talking about college basketball since its March, but the NBA has a similar 24-second shot clock. Failure to shoot within the required time automatically gives the ball back to the other team. The law's version of the shot clock is the statute of limitations (not to be confused with the statute of repose. Once you have a legal claim, you only have so much time to file suit. Depending on the circumstances, the clock starts when you are harmed, when you discover that you have been harmed, or when you reasonably should have discovered that you have been harmed. How much time is on the clock generally depends on which state's law applies and the type of claim. The consequence of not filing suit in time is not just a turnover, but may be game over, as one owner in Seattle learned last week (see Fifteen Twenty-One Second Avenue Condo. Ass'n v. Viracon, LLC, et al., Case No. 23-cv-1999-BJR (W.D. Wash. Feb. 27, 2026)).

The Fifteen Twenty-One case involves construction defect claims brought in 2023 by owners of units in a 38-floor luxury condo building in Seattle at 1521 Second Avenue. The building was completed in 2008 and features a high-performance glass curtain wall that functions as a window and exterior wall. The owner's association alleged that the curtain wall was defective because the sealant would migrate or "leak," reducing its insulating properties and rendering it unsightly and unsafe. The problem for the owners was that they had been on notice of these claims for seven years before they filed suit. Evidence of prior notice included, among other things, (1) a 2016 incident where a glass panel had spontaneously broken due to migrating sealant and (2) a photograph taken by building management in 2016 that documented migrating sealant issues. Under Washington law, the applicable statutes of limitation began to run when the owners discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, their claims. Here, that happened by 2016 at the latest. The applicable statutes of limitation required suit to be filed within three years on some claims and four years on others. Because the owners did not file until 2023, the proverbial shot clock had expired on all claims, and the court dismissed the case.

A copy of the court's opinion is available here. While the opinion should spell the end of proceedings in the trial court, modern basketball fans should be accustomed to what likely happens next: an appeal (aka a coach's challenge).

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